Relationships are incredibly tricky, but they really shouldn’t be. Relationships, founded in true and honest love, should and are incredibly easy.

I recently watched Jigsaw, a Netflix stand-up comedy written and performed by Daniel Sloss. If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend. The main focus of his bits, among his disdain for veganism and his parent’s disgusting affection for one another, is the concept of relationships and how they relate to a jigsaw puzzle.

He argues one’s life journey is like completing a jigsaw puzzle. Each corner relates to your family, your friends, your career, your hobbies, and the middle relates to happiness, whether that be a relationship, your passion, etc., and a lot of people, because they don’t know themselves well, force the piece in the middle to fit, even when it doesn’t. Often, people equate relationships to happiness, and they often force the piece of a relationship to work.

As I was watching this, it hit me: I have forced the jigsaw puzzle. I’ve forced many a relationship far past their breaking point. That was my MO. Sitting there, in a relationship that had fallen apart, but staying, fighting the inevitable, as if it were my fault the pieces of two different puzzles didn’t fit.

I’m not alone in this fight. My friends, my family, peers and acquaintances. I come from a long line of women who have been taught their role in life is to fix broken men; to hurt so they may be free; to accept the slings and arrows they may throw; to fix the broken men who show us a menial amount of affection; to accept crumbs and call themselves full.

It took me graduating from college, moving 6 hours away from family and friends, and living completely alone for me to realize I was not happy with the jigsaw puzzle piece I was desperately forcing into my puzzle. I thought if I could make my relationship work, I would be happy. I had been convinced, by a cocktail of societal pressures, pressures from friends and family, and my untreated mental health issues, that a single person could fill the emptiness within me.

It turns out that isn’t true.

There is so much to happiness in life outside of a successful relationship with a lifelong partner. There is so much life to live, places to explore, things to try. To convince yourself the love of your life is someone who loves you 30% when you only love yourself 20% is preposterous, and to convince yourself the love of your life is someone you’ve spent a few years with is just plain deranged.

Time does not equal success. The love of your life will love you entirely, as you will love them entirely. The trick is to knowing yourself.

A little over a year ago, I set out on that very journey: to find out who I was and to love myself completely. It was far from a smooth journey. I drank and went out a lot, I chased boys because I thought it would make me feel free, I succumbed to my anxiety, I had bouts where I was convinced I was supposed to be with this boy I had just left, and I was deeply unhappy.

It took a full year’s time—and me finally getting help for the anxiety and depression that plagued me my entire life—to realize what I wanted out of life. It took a full year for me to realize that I never have to figure out my life’s purpose to be happy. It took a full year—nay, it took much longer—for me to completely fall in love with myself.

My favorite quote to sum this up is from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

“For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”

May you find the courage to live the life you are proud of and the strength to start all over again.

Two years at Joliet Junior College, and two years at Shampoo Banana--Champaign-Urbana.

Four years, minimal debt (thanks, junior college and scholarships!), and countless memories later, I'm finally a college graduate and a productive member of society--I think?

See that smile? I'm pretty stoked to be done writing research papers.

Oh, and I got a job doing what I love in a location that suits me well.

In a few weeks, I'll be joining the digital team at FLM+ in Minneapolis as a digital and social media writer. If you know anything or have seen any of my work over the past two years, you know this is a perfect fit for me.

As sad as I am to leave my nest and finally fly away, I'm excited to start a new chapter and start making a life for myself. However, I would be remissed if I didn't include some parting thoughts and advice for the college undergrads looking to maximize their time in the world.

5.) Do your laundry, take showers, work out, and eat healthy when you can. It's not always easy to do all four, but investing your time. It's worth it in the end.

4.)$10 cover and $4 Blue Guys are rarely worth the price. There is the rare occasion that a sweaty frat boy won't make you feel uncomfortable, but I wouldn't take my chances. While we're on the topic of boys, this next one is for the ladies (and non-gender conforming folks, too).

3.) Fall madly in love with your body and yourself. You only get one body and one life, and we spend too much time trying to fix what's already amazing and perfect. Your body is powerful, beautiful, and deserves your love.

2.) Stray from the path. Join a club you've always wanted to try. Take a class just to try something new. My best experiences have come from me pursuing my passions outside of what I thought I should be doing with my time.

1.) Enjoy every last minute. It's cliché, but soon you'll blink, and you'll be saying "see you soon" to some of your best friends. Make memories and enjoy the incredible yet fleeting time you have to be young and kinda carefree.

Thank you, Champaign-Urbana, for the last four years of memories. It's been real and fun and real fun, but now I have to leave and be a grown-up.

I've been absolutely horrible about writing blog posts, which is evident by the lack of content on my blog (one post) and the number of drafts I have written and saved (three).

While that is the case so far, nothing quite gets me to change like a new year and some resolutions to go with it. Most of them are regulars--go to the gym more, cut back on drinking/eating out/spending money, post content regularly to my blog--but the one that has crossed my mind the most is to stop waiting.

It's a strange phenomenon for me to be someone who waits. Me, the Type-A personality who started looking for full-time employment last summer--I graduate this May. However, what I've noticed about my "waiting," and the "waiting" of humans in general, is that it's a little more subtle than completing tasks. It means waiting for things that aren't in my immediate attention to get bad. Like, really bad.

I can see the confusion. I know, I'm being vague, but stay with me.

The things I'm talking about ranged from the small--a relationship that isn't very healthy, a peer making mildly ignorant comments--to the near catastrophic--the Syrian civil war, the presidential election. In each of these situations, I kept telling myself, "Things aren't as bad as they seem. That friend didn't mean to say those hurtful things, that guy was just trying to be funny, I can't do anything to help Syrian refugees, there's no way our country would elect a reality TV host that says and does reprehensible things. "

Except those things did happen, those things were as bad as they seemed, and in some cases, even worse. Yet they didn't get the necessary attention they deserved because they weren't falling apart or blowing up in our own faces. It was easier to not say anything because it wasn't affecting us. It was easier not to say something than risk unfavorable attention from our friends.

The truth is that things shouldn't have to be falling apart for us to help. We shouldn't have to wait and see children dying in Aleppo on our Facebook feeds for us to care. We shouldn't wait until our colleague uses the N-word for us to call out ignorant behaviors. We shouldn't wait until someone hurts us to realize the relationship isn't worth saving. We can and should start solving problems sooner. The best time to start helping is now.

If you can't afford to help with money, then choose to help with your voice. If something makes you uncomfortable, speak up. If you don't like something, speak up. You were given a strong voice. Use it make the world a better place for you and for everyone.

I want to finish this inaugural post of 2017 with the words of Elie Wiesel. Let's do better for everyone in 2017.

As Fetty Wap and all the cool kids that listen to him say, "Hey. What's Up. Hello." Welcome to my personal portfolio/website/blog where I will spill all the exciting details of my life, although I'm not sure how exciting the life of a broke college student can be.

If you're a family member or friend, thank you for following and supporting me, although you're not going to find anything exciting or new that you didn't know. For those of you that don't really know me, allow me to introduce myself. I'm 21 and a senior in college, no full-time job offers and excited/anxious/terrified of what this next 365 days will hold. I also love using slashes to explain feelings because, like the movie Inside Out tells us, we rarely feel only one emotion at a time. I also really enjoy using quotes because sometimes, people have already said something better, and why reinvent the wheel, ya know?

Get ready for this wild and bumpy ride, folks. Like the great George Strait once said, "I ain't here for a long time. I'm here for a good time."